Excuses Like Membrane
by Fadingsilverstar16
Summary: Bucky takes something of Steve's, and then something else (or how life goes when there's both a surplus and lack of alcohol).


So the story behind this story is that I stumbled upon the Steve/Bucky community over on Livejournal, got inspired, wrote a couple thousand words of a Winter Soldier drabble series, started on this as a flashback segment of said series, but then this sort of exploded and here we are!

Why do I have a sinking feeling that my writing is only getting rustier as time goes on? Oh, well. Hope someone out there enjoys.

* * *

_excuses like membrane_

The rim of the flask touched Steve's mouth, held there for a moment before he pulled back and stared.

"James."

As if he didn't already look comfortable, Bucky shifted and sighed, relaxing even lower into his scratchy, pathetic looking couple of blankets with his arms behind his head, but it still wasn't enough to hide the reason behind that knowing little smile of his and damn if he didn't look both pleased with himself and slightly guilty all at once. It was the _hey Steve look at what I sold to get you some drawing pencils_ look, the _I just went after that guy making fun of you and shoved his head up his ass after you told me not to_ look. It was the _nothin' but a scratch_ look, and seeing it always made Steve feel closer to Brooklyn than anything else could, like he was two seconds from blinking and waking up in an alley where some lughead had knocked him out and Captain America was nothing but a dream.

(Or maybe Bucky was just drunk. )

"Yeah, partner?"

"This flask."

"Uh-huh."

"You filled it with _apple juice_." And Bucky's chapped lips cracked in several places as he grinned. A fat drop of blood welled up in one of them, this close to spilling over, and on a different day (in a different world) Steve might have reached over to wipe it away. But this was wartime, in Europe, in a tent somewhere a bit too far from the Allied border to feel secure in any way, and what would Peggy or Stark or any of the Commandos say anyway, if they caught Steve doing that.

"Well, I figured that since whiskey can't do the trick of mellowing you out anymore..."

"You'd get mellow enough for the both of us," Steve finished, allowing himself to feel just a little bitter and exasperated for once as he flopped down on his own sleeping area, tossing his right arm over his face to shield his eyes from view.

"Correct. Now, 's not exactly a _waste_ for you to have some, you see, so don't ever say that I told you that, especially if you still feel warm or get tingles or whatever when you do drink. It's just that we have _finite resources_, Stevie. Once it's gone, it's gone. So if you can't even get a little drunk, be a pal and let me make the bad decisions."

"Come on, Buck -"

"They tell me apple juice is good for you."

On one hand, Steve could've hit him. A good cuff right to the back of the head, even if Bucky was a little concussed from their latest adventure. On the other hand, he had a point. Steve had never been much of a drinker in the first place; before, alcohol was mostly an indulgence with a darker purpose behind it, usually to dull the pain of scraped elbows and bruised knuckles or put a dent on an even more frequently wounded ego. Sometimes, after a bully had smashed his face into concrete or nearly cracked one of his ribs, the smell of dime-store whiskey would be the first kick to his senses when he came to, along with that tiny, secret pang in his chest (of relief? humiliation?) as Bucky cradled the back of his head, lifting it up so Steve could swallow right.

(There were many, many people who'd say James Barnes just didn't "do" gentle, for all his smirking charm and cold, sharp sniping skills, and they'd never know not a word of it was true.)

"I don't even really remember what it feels like," Steve said, and it wasn't even a lie. In the laughably small space of their tent, he both heard and felt Buck move next to him, their sides pressing together, and it might have been the nicest physical contact either of them had felt in a long, long time.

"Ouch," Bucky said.

"Yeah, no, really. I'm trying to imagine it and I _can't_ -"

"That's why I said 'ouch', punk, 'cause... that's tough. Really, it is. They talk about the bad side of it all the time, and everyone knows how shitty it is to depend on this stuff to live, but... " Bucky trailed off, grasping for his own flask with the arm that wasn't slotted between him and Steve before he remembered that it was empty. "But they don't talk about the fuzziness."

And this should have been the point where Steve stopped him, just shut him up and made them both sleep because this did not sound anything like an intelligent conversation starter, and yet...

"Fuzziness?" Steve snorted. The corner of his mouth quirked, though it only lasted a second before Bucky shifted even closer to him, moving their blankets around so that they all overlapped and would definitely be all tangled up come morning. From what he could sense, even with one arm still slung over his eyes, his friend's movements were slow and measured, in the _even though I am drunk I will not be fucking this simple task up tonight_ sort of way.

When Bucky settled back down against him, bordering on too close this time, Steve sucked in a breath through his teeth and chewed on his tongue, though he knew it wasn't necessary. No one was going to come looking for them. Most likely.

(Somewhere in the back of his mind, a more logical part of Steve grew irritated with himself, irritated that Bucky being close _did_ things to him at tired, vulnerable times and even if it hadn't mattered back in Brooklyn when nobody cared about either of them, it certainly mattered now. There had been times sealed between thin apartment walls when waking up boneless and sticky next to his best friend was alright if he cleaned up and kept quiet, but the war changed that like it was changing the entire damn world; Steve was a part of something that was so much bigger than he was now and there were things that just could. Not. Happen.)

"Yeah, y'know. Fuzzy. Hazy. Puts a damper on all that tension. Makes things easier, kinda."

"They shouldn't allow you to drink so much while out here," Steve grumbled.

"Ah, but Steve, this stuff was straight from the medic. Remember the nick I got on my side yesterday?"

"Not the whiskey you pilfered from _me_." Steve finally lowered his arm and sat up to glare down at Bucky, trying to put on his best irritated-person-of-authority face. He got a raised eyebrow and a hopeful look (that wasn't sorry in the slightest) in return.

"Do you forgive me?" Bucky asked.

Craning his neck upward, the good Captain looked pensive for a moment. A small, indulgent smile crept across his lips, and he sighed, at both Bucky and himself.

"No." Steve laid down. He turned away from Bucky and closed his eyes and there. _That_ was the end of the conversation for the whole night.

For five seconds, anyway.

"I can make it up to you."

"Don't bother."

"I fucked up."

"You don't feel bad about it."

Silence. For more than five seconds, that time. Steve started counting in his head - _seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen_...

"Let's just say that I feel bad that I don't feel bad."

"Good night, jerk."

Bucky didn't even try to hide his chuckle, his breath hot and stale against the back of Steve's neck, and Steve tried to remember at what point during the past five minutes they had gone from just physically close to nearly spooning. It had to have been a natural transition, he knew, little movements upon little movements until they were just _there_ and separating didn't seem like an option, even though it was the only right option they had.

(But it was okay, right? No one was going to come looking for them. Nobody was going to see.)

Steve felt a warm hand press to his side, just above his waist.

"I liked the small you better. Much less bossy."

No. Oh, no.

"Bucky, what are you-"

"Shhh," Bucky whispered. The hand clutching at Steve's ribs tugged hard and didn't stop until he'd turned over. "Stop being so damn tense. Relax, 'm not that drunk. Just feels... easier."

_If you're doing this, then you definitely are_, Steve wanted to hiss at him, but the words dissolved into nothing in his throat and came out as a single harsh breath, loud, nearly too loud because oh, God. Bucky was touching him. Steve's brother, his best friend was cupping him through his pants, four fingers squeezing in careful exploration while a rough thumb miraculously found his tip and pressed, coaxing him to swell. Their mouths went from a safe distance to an inch away from touching in one wild second (except he could nearly taste whiskey and this was wrong, wrong, _wrong_), but Buck's free hand came between them at the last moment, two cool digits pressing insistently between Steve's lips.

"You clearly can't be trusted," he quipped, though there was no edge to his voice. "Open up."

And it might have been a sight to behold for anyone but them, to see Captain America make a cracked little noise in the back of his throat and oblige.

Bucky's fingers tasted horrible, all dirt and salt with a metal tang and yes, another hint of cheap alcohol. With a shuddering inhale, Steve accepted the intrusion (_didn't take long, did it_) down to the second joint, mindful of his teeth, and tried not to wonder if there was more to this than just keeping him quiet. Maybe he was actually contributing, too, since Bucky's breathing was more labored than his. As if this wasn't about apologizing. As if touching Steve was something he'd been waiting forever to do and he'd just settled on the flimsiest excuse to do it.

They fell into a rhythm for a while, with Steve the one all huddled up to his friend's side, and damn if it didn't feel just like home.

Except for the finger suckling, of course. Or the sheer lack of space between their bodies. Or the fact that it was also _Captain America_ (face of a nation), not just _Steve Rogers_ pushing his hips into the hand of another soldier, another man. Not to mention this look, the one Bucky was giving him now. The dark, knowing, _I'll make this good for you_ look that could've been for any equally tipsy dame at any seedy bar. Steve knew that look, knew the way he would bend to whisper in the girl's ear, knew the curl of Bucky's fingers around her delicate wrist. He'd play with her hair, kiss her knuckles, and yeah, maybe he'd always been sort of a handsy drunk.

But not with Steve. Never with Steve.

"'S not queer, y'know," Bucky promised him quietly, a minute after Steve felt himself start to leak. "It's just... us being pals. Would've done this while you were small, Steve. If you wanted to."

Had he wanted to? Would he have gone through with this even if it risked changing basically everything? Steve couldn't decide; his friend's rubbing and kneading were making his whole head into a broken record, thoughts skipping and scratching with big gaps of silence in between. His insides had already twisted into knots, the kind that pulled and tugged at themselves until it felt like he'd never take another full breath again. At some point, though, in a moment of stunning clarity Steve thought of moving his arms, which were still lying useless at his sides. It wouldn't take much effort, he was sure, to reach over and reciprocate and let his answer be _yes_. Hell, maybe Bucky was waiting for him to make a move. That was the next step, wasn't it? For both of them to succumb.

The idea made Steve's penis twitch.

"Let's go, buddy boy. I know you wanna sleep." Bucky slipped his fingers out of Steve's mouth, flexed his newly freed hand before he laid it on the back of the other's neck. For his part, Steve licked his lips and parted them, meaning to respond (_why are you doing this to me_), but Bucky beat him to the punch, tilting their foreheads together with a smile.

"C'mon, Steve," he murmured, and squeezed.

There were no cries as Steve shivered and spilled, only a couple of whimpers that Bucky hushed with his lips, swallowing them down until there were dried flecks of blood on Steve's tongue and both of them were breathless. He gave his superior one last good stroke before pulling away, making sure Steve was emptied out, but when two large hands chased after the contact, meaning to draw him back, Bucky put a sweaty hand on Steve's wrist and shook his head.

"Nah, I'm good. It's okay," he grit out, except Steve had already started moving in the exact wrong direction and no, his best friend's erection pressing against Captain America's leg was not okay. Not wanting to give himself time to think, Steve grabbed Bucky's hip, his other hand snatching on his shirt, just firm enough to keep either of them from backing down. Two seconds of struggling later, his thigh was hitched between Bucky's legs.

"I paid you back, Cap." He tried to push away, putting pitifully little effort into it, but then Steve was doing something again, turning in some odd direction that rubbed him just so and Bucky hissed, rocking into him, clutching his shoulders for leverage. Somewhere along the way their lips caught again (Steve's second kiss ever, he realized dimly), just two seconds shy of Bucky pulling back to smirk at him, never breaking his rhythm.

"Always gotta have it your way, don't you brat?" he huffed, to which Steve replied by throwing his massive arms around Bucky's middle as his hips snapped forward, tossing the other into his orgasm and holding him close the entire way through.

They came back to themselves with Bucky petting a tangled mess of blonde hair, whispering _you're alright_ and _it's okay_ and yes, it really was okay, because Captain America was always okay. There were no crises for the face of a nation, no _oh God what did I just do_ or _we can't be this way, Buck_. No Steve Rogers downing a flask of tart apple juice and wishing it was whiskey, wishing he could still get drunk in the first place. No Steve Rogers shaking himself apart in the arms of Bucky Barnes over getting kicked out of the army, or being shipped off to somewhere away from his best friend forever, or gong to Hell, so Bucky compromised after a few minutes, dropping a kiss on Steve's forehead before he muttered something about remembering this in the morning and rolled over so no part of their bodies touched.

"Don't sweat it," he said, just loud enough for the good Captain to hear, and closed his eyes.


End file.
